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An interview with Mark Valeri, author of Heavenly Merchandize: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America. To men traveling through the British colonies, everything was new — especially in the bedroom. A review of Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America by Jack Rakove. Was the American Revolution just? A review of Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum America by Elisa Tamarkin. A review of Jesus and Gin: Evangelicalism, the Roaring Twenties and Today's Culture Wars by Barry Hankins. The signpost at the crossroads: When it comes to politics, abortion remains at the intersection of religion and American public life. A review of The Religious Left and Church-State Relations by Steven H. Shiffrin (and more). It is ironic that the South is regarded as backward, ignorant and uncivilized by what we think of as the intelligentsia of the world. After the 2010 census we could see something of a neo-confederate majority in Congress; historical patterns may be repeating themselves, but they could produce a very different final result. America, land of loners: Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses — what they need is to rediscover the value of friendship. More and more and more on Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen.

From Philosophy Now, what is philosophy and how do we do it? Are the concerns of philosophers far removed from daily lives of most people? Philosophers aren’t detached from reality, lost in an ivory tower, irrelevant; rather, they want to be all these things but can’t be — reality inevitably gets in the way. Philosophy has a long history of dangerous ideas, but how a philosophy book could possibly pose a security threat to a computer network? A review of Philosophy and Happiness. Here is the introduction to Philosophy as Therapeia. A review of Persons: What Philosophers Say about You by Warren Bourgeois. Do we need philosophy? The death of the David Hull leads Michael Ruse to question whether philosophers have become as extinct as lamplighters. Moral camouflage or moral monkeys: Is the great show we make of morality just a civilized cover for our selfish opportunism? Perhaps Socrates’s mission is to make the world safe for ugly people — isn’t everyone a little ugly, one way or the other, at one time or another? From The Guardian, a series on Montaigne, philosopher of life. What do Gandhi and Mother Teresa have in common with Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer? Very little, you might reply — but our perceptions of them are in certain ways surprisingly similar. An interview with Greg Bassham, author of "Lance Armstrong and True Success" in Cycling — Philosophy for Everyone: A Philosophical Tour de Force. Why doesn't Batman just kill his arch-nemesis, the murderous Joker? Enter philosopher Immanuel Kant and the deontological theory of ethics. Here is the The Philosophers' Magazine's "Ideas of the 21st Century" page.

From The Scoop Deck, what sank the Cheonan? Daddy issues; and how good is the pirate lobby? Psychologist Marc Hauser goes from one sort of limelight to another, and Michael Ruse is disappointed and frustrated. Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on why federal-private salary comparisons are "apples to oranges". What's right with this picture? Let’s at least call barbarism by its right name — which is just what the Time photograph did. From Fast Company, Alex Bogusky, the Elvis of advertising, has left the business — is this a New Age midlife crisis or his greatest rebranding campaign? Being a full-time human guinea pig is a service-sector job with needles; Scott McLemee looks at an ethnographic report. Why don't Americans like Muslims? From Atlas Obscura, an article on the Museum of Death, the world's largest collection of serial killer artwork and other macabre exhibits. Slumdog Tourism: Slum tourists may think they’re doing good, but the activity hurts more than it helps. As he prepares for his first ever arena tour, New Humanist catches up with rising rationalist star Tim Minchin. From Spectrum, could the murder victim's BlackBerry lead to her killer? Increasingly, the answer is yes. A review of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.